Over at the Discovery Institute’s blog, Rob Crowther is playing up the “Dissent from Darwinism” list. Again. The list is nothing new. They’ve been working on it for several years now, and have managed to accumulate “over 700″ signatures from around the world. Given the number of scientists on the planet, and the degree to which the DI folks have relaxed their definition of “scientist”, it’s hardly a stellar performance on their part. As much as I’d like to ignore the list for being the laughable public relations gimmick that it is, I’m not going to this time. Crowther managed to punch one of my buttons with his latest attempt to describe the reasons that people sign this list:

Signers of the Dissent List have signed the list because it is their professional opinion that the evidence is lacking for the claims for the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Period. Nothing more, and nothing less.

It’s their professional opinion? Based on what, exactly?

What basis does Douglas Keil, who is listed as having a PhD in “Plasma Physics” have for forming a professional opinion on evolutionary biology? How about Jeanne Drisko, “Clinical Assistant Professor of Alternative Medicine” at the University of Kansas School of Medicine? Or Aaron Miller, who has a PhD in physics? Or mathematician Gary Dilts? Or “research meteorologist” John Brown? Or Baylor physical chemist John Burba? or Why on earth would I think that any of those people is in any way, shape, or form competent to form a professional opinion on a topic that falls outside their claimed area of professional expertise?

I should note at this point that I haphazardly plucked those people from the list. There are many others there who I could have listed instead. That, in a nutshell, is what bugs me about this whole thing. Crowther wants us to think that all of the people on this list of alleged scientists, many of whom appear to have absolutely no basis for claiming any kind of expertise, experience, or insight in any area of the biological sciences, are qualified to render professional opinions about evolution. Then, he wants us to accept their “professional” opinions as evidence that there’s a legitimate “controversy” about evolution. But he doesn’t want us to accept the professional opinions of the vast, overwhelming majority of scientists who actually work in relevant fields and say that there’s absolutely no controversy about the basics of evolution.

The hypocrisy is annoying. But that’s par for the course when it comes to the Discovery Institute.

Comments

That bugs me too. But what really bugs me is the statement is not at all connected to “dissent from Darwinism”. It says nothing that biologists haven’t known for decades. Of course mutation and natural selection aren’t sufficient, we know life also used evolutionary processes like adaptive radiation, endosymbiosis, horizontal gene transfer, sexual selection, etc. They present these people as opponents of evolution when the statement the people actually signed says nothing of the sort. It would be like having people sign a list saying “we feel the law of octaves is an insufficient to explain the entire structure of the periodic table of the elements”, label it “the dissent from Mendeleevism list” and present the signatories as though they reject the periodic table of the elements entirely.

My suspicion is that a fair number on the list have PhDs but aren’t actually working scientists, let alone working in the right fields. Douglas Kiel appears to be one such example. Here he is opining on OEC:

Yes, they should. Actually, first they should cull from their least people who aren’t scientists period (doctors, engineers, physical therapists, quacks, etc). Then they should cull from their least people who don’t have relative expertise. Then they should cull from the list anyone who doesn’t “dissent from Darwinism” in the first place, anyone who doesn’t agree with the them promoting the signatories as opponents or critics of evolution, and anyone who doesn’t agree with the political uses the message us being used for. In other words, they should remove anyone who isn’t qualified to be on the list and anyone who doesn’t want to be on the list. They have, so far, obviously refused to take of unqualified people and as far as I am aware they have also refused to remove people from the list who have said they were tricked into signing it and want their names removed. It would also be nice if they accurately portrayed the current positions of each of the signatories.

Last October I compared the DI’s list to Project Steve in terms of how many signatories self-identified as being in a field directly relevant to evolution. I counted 159 of the 704 (22.5%) on the DI list were in an evolution-related field. My review of the Project Steve list is incomplete, but of the 126 I have looked at, 58 (46%) are in a field relevant to evolution.

If anyone is interested I can send them the Excel spreadsheet with all this stuff.

An observation, nay a question. Should the organisers of Project Steve cull from the list of assenting scientists all those who are not formally qualified in the evolutionary sciences?

I certainly wouldn’t object if they did, but I also
think that there are some good reasons for them to keep their standards as they are.

First, remember that the NCSE list is a response to, and satire of, the DI list. Given that, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for them to also widen their prospective pool of Steves.

Second, I think there’s a difference between a scientist who is publicly agreeing with the overwhelming consensus in another area of science, and one who is publicly disagreeing.

Agreeing with the consensus in the other field is essentially a statement that you understand the current state of knowledge in that field, and are willing to extend the people who actually work in that area the courtesy of not thinking that they’re all permanently out to lunch.

Disagreeing with the consensus sends an entirely different message. It says: “I, Joe Blow, on the basis of my extensive experience as a toothbrush-bristle designer, think that I am better able to evaluate the scientific status of evolution than people who have spent a lifetime studying evolution.”

I have been doing a bit of analysis on subsamples of the “Dissenters from Darwinism” list (see Who are the ï¿½dissenters from Darwinismï¿½?) using information on their religious views and activity available on the internet. This convinces me that the very vast majority of the signatories had religious motives for their actions. Evidence for such motivation is there for almost every individual one looks into.

I counted the Steves with specialties in biology in February 2006, at the request of a reporter for The New York Times. As Kenneth Chang reported (February 21, 2006), “the National Center for Science Education says that 54 percent (381) of the Steves on the Project Steve petition work in biology, which includes anatomy, anthropology, biochemistry, biophysics, botany, cell biology. Including related life sciences fields like medicine, forestry and agriculture, the percentage rises to 61 percent.” I’m not sure what the percentage is now; I expect that it’s comparable.

Jean Drisko is a great example of who endorses that kind of crap. She is a major proponent of woo. Her work has been severely criticized on faulty experimental design and lack of rigurosity. It seems that she missed the scientific method altogether in college. I doubt she can spell Hardy-Weinberg. Check out her page over at QuackWatch.

This raises a broader question: why should any of us non-experts have an “opinion” on the subject at all? I certainly don’t. I know what actual experts say is true and even have some very modest knowledge about why they say it. I know that within the community of actual experts there are some areas of controversy about which some experts believe one thing and some another. I know I have no basis for taking sides on those controversies, and, therefore, I don’t. I don’t believe, or have an opinion about, any of this, any more than I have beliefs or opinions about Greco-Roman wrestling or Bulgarian cinema. Why should any other non-expert be any different?

The creationists selectively choose authority the same way they selectively choose facts: by only focusing on those that support their views. If its the support of scientists that count, evolution wins hands down. Of course, we should discuss the evidence, not the votes of scientists, when discussing scientific matters. But then the creationists lose that battle, and badly, which is why they made the 700 Club list in the first place.

Great summary of the difference in the burdon of proof Mike. I’ve been expressing similar views for a while now, but never so piercing and colorful.

In addition to analyzing the 700 name list for expertise in biology, we should also analyze it relative to where the signers earned their advanced degrees. I suspect that many of them received those degrees from phony bible colleges and diploma mills.

One of the names you pulled from the list piqued my interest, since I’m a Baylor biochemistry student. I hadn’t heard the name John Burba before, so I checked the faculty list for the chemistry and biochemistry department and didn’t find his name there. There’s no history of him on Baylor’s website, or the student newspaper archives, and the only publications I could find online were some papers on various minerals and their adsorption properties back in the 80’s, plus a boat load of patents.

I love this topic as real hard evidence, from both sides, is hard to come by. I’ve always wondered about the “first” for everything. Like the “first” eye because, at one point, there was no vision, and then there was? I would love more insight into the evolutionary explanation of how an “eye” ends up as the result of mutation.
Scott Ahrens for INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS

I have been doing a bit of analysis on subsamples of the “Dissenters from Darwinism” list (see Who are the “dissenters from Darwinism”?) using information on their religious views and activity available on the internet. This convinces me that the very vast majority of the signatories had religious motives for their actions. Evidence for such motivation is there for almost every individual one looks into.

Cody,
Check the dissertations from Baylor. He likely earned a degree there and has moved on into industry. A John Burba is a vice president at molycorp.com a mining firm in Colorado. The affiliation listed is random – sometimes where they earned their degree and sometimes where they now are in employed. Many biologists now working at Christian colleges chose to list their nonsectarian degree institutions. It is interesting to note the revolving door in So. Carolina between Clemson and Bob Jones Universities.

I’ve said it before at PT: there is nothing in that statement that *any* sceptical scientist should disagree with. So why not pull the carpet out from under the DI by having 700 Steves (or the Antichrist Dawkins, or a few Nobel-winning Evilushinists) apply to sign it? The DI will then have a difficult choice: it can allow them to do so, and look forward to them waving it at the faithful while continuing to uphold science; or it could refuse to allow them to sign it, causing its biggest PR disaster ever.

Second, once you’re on the list, you’re on for good, even if a mistake was reported.

NM’s own Rebecca Keller is currently listed as:
Rebecca Keller, Research Professor, Department of Chemistry University of New Mexico

I was suspicious of this way back in October of 2001, and wrote her about it then. She replied that she was not a “Research Professor,” but instead a “Research Assistant Professor” (an unpaid, untenured position). In another letter to her, I said

It appears the Discovery Institute’s page at http://www.reviewevolution.com/press/pressRelease_100Scientists.php
isn’t exactly right when they refer to you as a “research professor” rather than a “research assistant professor,” but I suspect that that mistake might be theirs rather than yours. … I will leave it to you to inform the DI folks of their minor error. …

Seven years later, not only did Keller never get the “Magisterium” (e.g. the Discovery Institute) to correct their error – she is no longer at UNM in any capacity.

Just go to the UNM Directory, search on Keller. Rebecca Keller is not one of the 18 people at UNM with Keller in their names, but her husband, David Keller, is still there.

Short Version: former UNM Chem. dept. “research assistant professor” was wrongly listed as a “research professor” on the DI’s 700 Club List, and the mistake persists to the present day, at which time Keller is not at UNM at all.

I would love more insight into the evolutionary explanation of how an “eye” ends up as the result of mutation.

The way to requite your love is to go to Google Scholar and type “eye evolution” into the search box. Click on “Search” and peruse the 600+ hits you get. Or go to PubMed and type “evolution of vision” and scan through the 1,100+ hits you get. The Internet is a great resource, you know.

“This raises a broader question: why should any of us non-experts have an “opinion” on the subject at all? I certainly don’t. I know what actual experts say is true and even have some very modest knowledge about why they say it.”

It is only in the last 150 years that science has been organized into little union like entities where crossover of knowledge is viewed with suspicion and then only in evoland. This is amusing since evoland is a parasite science where 99% of anything scientific comes from other real science fields
like physics,chemistry,geology,astronomy, and ,when anything practical is to be accomplished, one of the engineering fields.

Many of the big paleontological finds have been made by people without a single college degree and involve no more expertise than knowing how to shovel and brush.

The people on the DI list have earned doctorates in a crosssection of fields and all of them are involved in the hard sciences, life sciences, and certainly can read, study, and throughly understand the frailties of evolution.

Take a look at the old WISTAR papers by Eden and Morowitz sometime, professional mathmaticians who began the wave of analyses showing the impossibility of abiogenesis and evolution in general.

Get a grip and realize people are more educated today, real science is more open to review, and people are seeing the TOE for the flimsy hypothesis is always has been.

I don’t think there is much that can be done to counter this apart from the one very important and effective one – i.e. highlighting just how large the list of dissenters from dissent from Darwinism is compared to their list of dissenters!

My suspicion is that a fair number on the list have PhDs but aren’t actually working scientists, let alone working in the right fields.

Signers of the “Dissent from Darwin” petition list only one affiliation, usually the most impressive-looking. So if Billy D. once got a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, that’s what you’ll find listed. It doesn’t matter that he may now be teaching theology at a seminary. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a number of signers are now ‘professionally’ flipping burgers. Also notice that the list is not alphabetized, and is not searchable. It’s almost as if the DI does not welcome scrutiny of the signers.

“This raises a broader question: why should any of us non-experts have an “opinion” on the subject at all? I certainly don’t. I know what actual experts say is true and even have some very modest knowledge about why they say it.”

If we should not have an “opinion”, what should we have?

The short answer: Nothing. The longer answer is perhaps best given by analogy. I know next to nothing about hockey. The only players I could pick out of a line-up are Wayne Gretsky and Mark Messier (maybe Ron Duguay, too, but for different reasons). I can’t tell from the limited amount of hockey I see who’s good and who isn’t, but I see the occasional hockey article in sports magazines. On that basis I know a couple of things. I know that people who know hockey think Wayne Gretzky is on the short list of greatest-ever hockey players. I know that people who know hockey think Steve Yzerman is a very, very good, Hall-of-Fame-worthy, hockey player. I know that virtually no one who knows hockey thinks that Yzerman, good as he is, is up there with Wayne Gretzky. All of that, I actually know. There’s no opinion about it. But I know too little about hockey to have an opinion of my own re Gretzky v. Yzerman. I haven’t seen them play enough, and don’t know the game well enough to analyze what I do see. If asked, I can say what I know and how I know it, but I can’t say I have any beliefs in the matter, unless the belief that the hockey experts know more than I do about hockey counts.

Signers of the “Dissent from Darwin” petition list only one affiliation, usually the most impressive-looking.

Yes, there is a sentence to that effect right at the top of the list, though it’s not really clear what it means until someone has called attention to the problem.

At any rate, this is just more institutional DIshonesty. The reader has no idea whether Burba is on the Baylor faculty, or merely got his degree there and is now selling Tupperware for a living.

When you’re allowed to report the best of two tries, you produce a biased sample. An honest institution wouldn’t report its participants this way. But the DI has a vested interest in overreporting the credentials of its signers, so the “best of two” strategy works well for them.

Of course, an honest institution wouldn’t have included 80% of those people on the list to begin with, so what should we expect.

The people on the DI list have earned doctorates in a crosssection of fields and all of them are involved in the hard sciences, life sciences, and certainly can read, study, and throughly understand the frailties of evolution.

Is that supposed to explain the lack of biologists, or make me feel better about engineers telling me that ‘evoland’ is ‘flimsy’?

I quick google will provide the information you might need. I don’t do homework for evolanders.

I assume this is your subtle way of admitting you haven’t read it and can’t explain it. Thanks.

BTW, where’d you get this new buzzword ‘evoland’? Some radio host or antievolution blog? Or are you trying to popularize it yourself?

Name one thing that can be explained by Intelligent Design. Whether or not it can be explained by evolutionary biology.

Ooh, you’re setting yourself up. Everything can be explained by Intelligent Design. The explanation is “God did it that way because he wanted to.” The only problem is that this “explanation” has no real explanatory power or predictive power.

The DI list is a PR gimmick and a close look at it will turn up numerous amusing tidbits, I’m sure. The salient points.

1. Worldwide in fields relevant to evolution and biology, there are around 1 million scientists. The exact numbers are hard to estimate but the source for this is a talkorigins.org section on anti-evolution lists. So of this one million relevant scientists, the DI has at most 700 names, many of who are irrelevant. So 99% plus of relevant scientists aren’t dissenters from reality.

You could find a higher percentage of scientists in mental hospitals and detox centers than evolution deniers.

2. The vast majority of those 700 freely admit they oppose the fact of evolution based on religious grounds. I’m sure that there are few if any agnostics and atheists on the list and an overrepresentation of religious fanatics and bigots from one fundie cult or another.

As a PR gimmick, that way less than 1% is a sign of a loser strategy. A lot more of the population believes the sun orbits the earth at 20%.

Keith, if ID is really “all about the science”, of what relevence is one’s being an atheist or even being under demonic control? Can’t atheists do good science just as well as people of faith? I mean, one’s faith (or lack thereof) is irrelevent to the quality of the science, right?

Keith Eaton: Evos have two types.. the ignorant atheist and the demonically controlled intellectual.

Gee Keith, thanks for letting us know that. A huge amount of modern medicine is based on evolutionary thought including infectious disease control and treatment and cancer therapy. Docs see evolution every day and evolution of pathogens and tumor cells kills millions of people worldwide every year.

How about the 99% plus of relevant scientists who accept the fact of evolution? Atheists or demon possessed?

In a few decades when you figure out the answers to those simple questions, maybe you can tell us what fundie Xians have contributed to humankind. Other than producing a few Xian terrorists, murdering a few MDs and others here and there, and celebrating ignorance while leading the way back to the Dark Ages.

Period. Nothing more, nothing less, and by the way, this means evolution is a poopy head and Intelligent Design is the bestest theory ever created and is our way of bringing Jesus back into school.

I also like Keith’sGet a grip and realize people are more educated today, real science is more open to review, and people are seeing the TOE for the flimsy hypothesis is always has been.
When I read all the incredibly ignorant things people in Dover, PA, Texas, Florida, and other places have said, I have to think Keith’s statement is not true.

Citing a paper written 40 years ago. Is that the best Mr. Eaton can do. A lot of water has flowed over the dam since 1966, including most of the genetic information that completely supports evolution elements such as common descent.

I posted a hot scoop on how the DI’s List misrepresents the University position of one of our New Mexico IDers late last night, but the comment didn’t get posted until just now. Unfortunately, it’s been posted back at 3:12 AM when I submitted it, not just before 5PM EST when it actually appeared. If you’re curious about how the DI messed it up seven years ago, and even more so in the present era, see comment 722807 from 3:12 am.http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/01/the_dissent_from_darwinism_lis.php#comment-722807
Dave

Dig into any one of the DD signers “stance,” and it invariably falls apart. Which only serves to reason, since ID is logically and evidentially indefensible.

A little over a year ago, I had the idea of creating a website devoted to systematically deconstructing the views of the ID signers,in a web-based, encyclopedic format. I actually even started the project – but it was too much work for one person, so I gave it up (my ambition often exceeds my reach). The idea is still sound, though, if anyone wants to pick it up for a team oriented approach.

A few years back (December of 2005) the “Dissent from Darwin” (DfD) list was touted in a letter to the editor of the NY Times. I took note as that letter from the DI’s John West listed the University of Georgia as being one of three institutions to have a “significant number” of signees. Indeed of the 498 signees at the time, nearly a dozen listed UGA as their institutional affiliation.

So on a whim I circulated a “Support of Darwin” petition. I mimicked the wording of the “Dissent” and I used the same criteria as did the DI (a Ph.D. in one of a number of disciplines, including engineering and mathematics, was required; no graduate students etc.). My list however had one additional requirement. You had to then be CURRENTLY employed or professionally affiliated with the University of Georgia. Within two months I had more signatures on my list than they did on theirs. Took them ten years to get to nearly 500 signatures, took me less than ten weeks.

Now I know that science does not progress by being a popularity contest, but this simple exercise revelaed that there are more Ph.D.s who support Darwinian concepts at a SINGLE institution of higher learning than there are on the entire planet Earth. My only drawback? I have yet to find a website that is willing to host my version of the “Support” at UGA petition. Folks at the NCSE did not like the fact that I paraphrased the DI petition. But hey I’m still shopping if anyone is willing to host it for me.

Summarizing a roughly 140 page book of collected papers is not my job.

Perhaps the more recent book “Origins” by Dr. Robert Shapiro(1986) whose credentials as a scientist and evolutionary proponent are unquestioned, lots of peer reviewed papers and all the other crap evolanders pile up against opposing views, will suffice since he reviews every abiogenesis theory yet proposed and summarily disposes of each one via mathmatical argument.

Evolanders are the pseudointellectual wantabees who hang out on these posts and rail against IDers and Christianity and expose themselves as 3rd rate thinkers, cynics, narrowminded true believers in a dogma they have inculcated after years of brainwashing.

Most real scientistst who do the real work of advancing humankind in terms of quality and quantity of life think about evolution writ large sense about once every 14 years and otherwise just perform observations as to how the world of life works, warts, and all, and take away ideas on how to effect practical applications of their understanding.

The greatest and most ubiquitious contributions of Christianity have been in engendering compassion, charity, art, music, literature, and giving meaning to human existence.

The heroic model of science has been dead for 60 years and deservedly so as it has and continues to betray democratic ideals of open inquiry, skepticism of itself, is elitist and censorious in its views of opposing ideas, and has become noting more than a grab for power and money in research and academia.

The caricature of ID and creationist views evolanders advance is a fallacy so poor as to give sophistry a bad name. We all note genetic change within kind, variation by genetic mechanism, mutation driven disease and other observational evidence of extant mechanisms.

For sure both evolutionist and IDers and creationists can be great scientistst and historically have been so that is a non-hunting dog. The question is whether parallel paths of investigation into scientific reality is more productive in principle than one way is the only way as in evolution controlling all investigative efforts, funded research, and education.

Two items for explanation present themselves.

The origin of the first replicator able to effect evolutionary change by RM and NS.

The metamorphosis of the monarch butterfly from a non-butterfly insect by RM and NS.

You blather on a lot but have not answered any relevant questions. I’ll repeat:

What is the theory of Intelligent Design and how can it be tested using the scientific method?

Intelligent Design explains the first replicator and the monarch butterfly metamorphosis how?

At what points in the development of life has the designer intervened? What are the telltale indicators of design? How can this guide researchers to look for design in new places? In what other kinds of systems does ID predict we will find evidence of design? Can we tell if the designer will intervene in the future?

You claim IDers can be great scientists. Where is the science of ID? How will this “parallel path” of inquiry be an improvement over evolution?

Evolanders are the pseudointellectual wantabees who hang out on these posts and rail against IDers and Christianity… etc..

Well Keith, you ignored every post deconstructing your nonsensical lies. Offhand, I’D say you were homeschooled and have never even seen a real university. Or a real scientist. Once again.

1. Many biologists, MDs, and other relevant scientists in “evoland” are Xians. Roughly half by the polls. And most Xians worldwide including Catholic, mainstream protestant, Mormon, and even some evangelicals don’t have a problem with evolution. Your cult Xianity is mostly found in the south central USA.

2. The number of scientists in relevant fields who accept evolution the fact and theory is still well over 99% USA and worldwide no matter how much you lie.

3. Now how do we tell the ignorant atheist scientists from the demonically controlled scientists? According to you this is over 99% of the US intellectual elite.

Done with Keith. He has probably tried reality and didn’t like it. It can be amusing for 15 seconds and that is about it.

It is sufficient to demonstrate the fact that the wantabee evolanders are liars in every respect by demonstrating that the posts on religious belief and faith are completely false and in conflict with the results of modern surveys by the scientific commmunity.

They concluded that academics in the natural and social sciences at elite research universities are significantly less religious than the general population. Almost 52 percent of scientists surveyed identified themselves as having no current religious affiliation compared with only 14 percent of the general population.

Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 “greater” scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively [2].

In 1996, we repeated Leuba’s 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature [3]. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba’s 1914 survey to gauge belief among “greater” scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents.

Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among “greater” scientists to their “superior knowledge, understanding, and experience” [3]. Similarly, Oxford University scientist Peter Atkins commented on our 1996 survey, “You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs. But I don’t think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they are such alien categories of knowledge.” [4] Such comments led us to repeat the second phase of Leuba’s study for an up-to-date comparison of the religious beliefs of “greater” and “lesser” scientists.

NAS president Bruce Alberts said: “There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists.” Our survey suggests otherwise.

I am unaware of any topic on the subject of origins, diversity of life or the history of mankind where the evolanders have not demonstrated their utter dishonesty, bigotry, blasphemy, censorious actions, and authoritarianism.

The outright lies on the subject of religious faith among American scientists as proven by the survery is prima facia evidence.

The outright lies on the subject of religious faith among American scientists as proven by the survery is prima facia evidence.

In 1996, we repeated Leuba’s 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature [3]. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt.

raven:

1. Many biologists, MDs, and other relevant scientists in “evoland” are Xians. Roughly half by the polls. And most Xians worldwide including Catholic, mainstream protestant, Mormon, and even some evangelicals don’t have a problem with evolution. Your cult Xianity is mostly found in the south central USA.

Keith, need to learn some reading comprehension. I said that roughly half of all relevant scientists are Xians. Your survey says that “40% are believers.” Roughly half is equivalent to 40%.

BTW, evolution is a scientific theory. It is neutral on religion one way or another and most Xian denominations don’t have a problem with it. The Pope of half the world’s Xians is one.

The truth or not of a scientific theory or fact isn’t effected in the least by your cult beliefs. Many fundies (26%) believe the earth is the center of the solar system because the bible says so. But it isn’t as any moron could figure out in 1 minute. Reality is what it is whether you like it or not.

I am unaware of any topic on the subject of origins, diversity of life or the history of mankind where the evolanders have not demonstrated their utter dishonesty, bigotry, blasphemy, censorious actions, and authoritarianism.

I’ve yet to see a fundie tell the truth about much of anything. When your whole world view is based on 2 pages of 4,000 mythology that was known to be wrong 2,000 years ago, all you can do is lie, lie, and lie some more. A structure of lies supported by other lies isn’t very stable. Or smart.

BTW, creo troll, most Xian denominations worldwide don’t have a problem with evolution. This includes Catholic, mainstream protestant, Mormon, and even some evangelicals. Evolution is taught at Xian universities such as SMU, Baylor, Calvin, Notre Dame, BYU, Pacific Lutheran, and on and on. According to you, most Xian denominations must be “utter dishonesty, bigotry, blasphemy, censorious actions, and authoritarianism.”

Must be a bleak, scary world you inhabit. Have you ever been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic?

My colleague is evaluating one. This guy believes that the Devil has won and all the people around him are demons that have replaced all the real people. By itself that wouldn’t get him into involuntary lockup but he was acting out and the police had to bring him in at the request of his family. If he doesn’t take his medication, he isn’t going to be released. He reminds me a lot of you.

Really, you need to take your medication or you may end up joining him.

It’s telling that when Keith tries to support creationism the best he can do is to produce statistics on scientists’ religious beliefs.

Keith, there are plenty of Christians who believe in evolution, and plenty of scientists who are religious. So the opposite of ‘evolution’ is not ‘Jesus’.

So you have no point, except expressing your witless hostility toward ‘evolanders’. You haven’t done anything whatsoever to disprove the scientific validity of evolution.

Keith, if you want to salvage some dignity here, why not answer some of the questions here about the scientific validity of evolution vs. creationism? Because snide comments about how much you hate ‘evolanders’ won’t get you anywhere among educated people, however big it might go over at church. Ignoring perfectly valid objections to creationism and citing articles you haven’t read doesn’t look good.

Another tip: inventing a juvenile insult that no one else uses, like ‘evolanders’, than repeating it ad nauseum makes you look like a childish crackpot.

Now how about explaining your theory of ‘demonically controlled intellectuals’? I was keen to hear you defend that one.

I am unaware of any topic on the subject of origins, diversity of life or the history of mankind where the evolanders have not demonstrated their utter dishonesty, bigotry, blasphemy, censorious actions, and authoritarianism.

It was clear you hadn’t read much of anything in science, but I didn’t realize it was THIS bad.

I see you have once again failed to answer a single question regarding the “science” of ID. Can’t say I’m surprised.

Sorry, Keith. If you want to overturn the current state of evolutionary biology, you have to come up with more than just irrelevant rants about surveys and religious beliefs. You have to come up with facts, data, models, predictions, you know…..some science.

You had an opportunity to convince the evolanders here of the merits of this allegedly powerful “new” paradigm called ID (a.k.a. “creationism”). You blew it. Really bad.

But, at least you’re not alone. I have yet to receive a straight answer from any IDiot to the question: “What is the theory of Intelligent Design and how can it be tested using the scientific method?”

How utterly hypocritical of you to complain of ad hominem attacks while you hurl all sorts of epithets at “evolanders.” You say you prefer facts yet you have failed to produce a single relevant piece of scientific information to support your claims.

He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 “greater” scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively [2].

Typical evolander misrepresentation: 40% are Christians vs the fact that 60% don’t have faith at all in a God. Thus the implication is that the remaining 40% are all Christians…yeah sure very rational logic when there are multiple religious faiths including Judism, Islam, Morman, and of course secular humanism.
And among the elite scientists, the published, vocal, activist type (hint hint) 85% are unbelieving. Now can you make 15% into all Christians?

And I didi not bring the statistics of believing scientists up it was the evolanders cute idea.

Can evolanders present anything factually?

Another lie is that anyone believes in other than a heliocentric solar system or that anyone since 400 BC believed the earth was flat. I suggest a little history of science literacy might be a goal for this group.

These comments illustrate the wilfully ignorant atheist subgroup with the modest assumption that the activist posting element falls into the published 70% unbelieveing segment of elite scientific types, elite is not necessarily a compliment.

I note the vacuous response to the Shapiro material probably because he was so decisive in his statements on every abiogenesis theory of the last 100 years and that he invented and published the universal life force theory in a book some years later. I assume you have capitulated on the point.

Likewise the metamorphosis of the monarch butterfly response was just silly…tadpoles don’t look like frogs, catapillars and grasshoppers differ, thus currently extant forms are actually evolutionary intermediate forms.

Is this your best shot or is there a grownup out there somewhere?

It’s your theory and I would have thought you could defend it…….guess not, as usual.

I am rather amused by Mr. Eatons’ apparent claim that only scientific theories proposed by Christian fundamentalists have any validity. Lets try some examples from fields outside of biology.

1. Paul Dirac, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who developed the Dirac theory of the electron, among other accomplishments, was an atheist. Therefore, in the fantasy world of Mr.
Eaton, I guess that theory is all wrong.

2. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who developed the theory of quantum electrodynamics was an atheist. Therefore, in the fantasy world of Mr. Eaton, I guess that theory is all wrong.

3. Werner Heisenberg, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who discovered the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, the backbone of quantum physics, was an atheist. Therefore, in the fantasy world of Mr. Eaton, I guess that theory is all wrong.

4. Murray GellMann, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who discovered the application of the group SU(3) to physics is an atheist. In the fantasy world of Mr. Eaton,I guess that theory is all wrong.

5. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who developed the relationship between the electromagnetic force and the weak force is an atheist. In the fantasy world of Mr. Eaton, I guess that theory is all wrong.

The bottom line here is that Mr. Eaton is unable to distinguish his posterior orifice from an open pit in the ground.

Ah! The crudity and ad hominem language I have come to expect from the inferior intellects has started in earnest.

The most basic claim of ID going back more than 100 years is that life requires a designer, an intellect, and cannot be achieved absent same.

It can be falsified by the act of demonstrating the creation of life from non-life by purely natural means absent any active involvement by the scientist(s) who design the primal condition experiment that results in the viable self replicator, one celled organism from which evolution by RM and NS can occur.

Since scientists have been attempting this experiment for 100 years with absolute zero success ID has not been falsified and thus remains a viable theory of origins.

It is perfectly rational since no one can illustrate a single scientific theory which is not the product of intelligence formulating a cognitive concept, planning its expression and implementing it by imposing such thoughts and ideas upon inanimate matter to achieve the result.

In human experience no one has developed any theory by the process of RM and NS , not ever, and no one even tries because they know it is a hopeless exercise.

If and when life, in the above sense is developed in a lab it will be accompished by the former approach and certainly not the latter.

It is a boldfaced lie to claim that I said or even intimated that only people of faith could be accomplished in science. Such dishonest mistatements only serve to confirm the clear evidence of the underlying unscrupulous behaviors of evolanders.

The monarch butterfly has two stages in its life cycle which have no possible reproductive capacity (nymph and pupa), no possible opportunity for RM and NS or any other mechanism to effect downstream stage organisms, no populations, no generations, period.

Even the seminal paper The origins of insect metamorphosis
James W. Truman & Lynn M. Riddiford
Department of Zoology, University of Washington Nature 1999 states:
The alternative hypothesis for metamorphosis held that larvae and nymphs were equivalent, and that the pupal stage arose DE NOVO,as the disparity between larva and adult widened5,6. Proponents of the latter hypothesis claimed that there was no difference in the amount of yolk in the eggs of holometabolous and hemimetabolous insects, and that some larval specializations, such as the abdominal
prolegs of certain scorpion¯y larvae, were derived structures that did not arise from the embryonic appendages8. The latter hypothesis,considering larvae and nymphs as equivalent stages, has been more widely followed.

Mr. Eatons’ willful ignorance and stupidity has become quite tiresome. It is conventional strategy among lying creationists such s Mr. Eaton to conflate the theory of life origin with the theory of evolution for the purpose of sowing confusion. The fact of the matter is that these two theories are entirely independent and have nothing to do with each other. As far as the theory of evolution is concerned, it is entirely irrelevant how life originated as the theory only addresses what happened after life originated. So Mr. Eaton can bluster on and on citing papers in the technical literature on origins which have nothing to do with the theory of evolution. I think that, at this point, Mr. Eaton is beginning to resemble Larry Fafarman in his inanities and Mr. Dunford might want to consider giving him the boot as he is contributing nothing to the discussion.

The most basic claim of ID going back more than 100 years is that life requires a designer, an intellect, and cannot be achieved absent same.

Which isn’t the claim of the modern ID movement, since they operate on the basis of “proofs” that this or that feature of this or that organism required a designer.

You realize, of course, that the origin of life is irrelevant to the operation of evolution? All evolution requires is an imperfect self-replicator; it doesn’t matter whether it was created by YHWH, Zeus, the FSM, a spaceman with sufficiently advanced technology, or a lightning bolt in a puddle of organic liquids. Once you have an imperfect self-replicator, it will evolve.

In human experience no one has developed any theory by the process of RM and NS , not ever, and no one even tries because they know it is a hopeless exercise.

Your ignorance is showning. (Or perhaps your dishonesty; it’s hard to tell with people like you.)

Please describe the imperfect replicator from which the very first evolutionary steps were possible.

Skip the impossible part about HOW it came to be and just tell us what it was, what molecules, structures, replication machinery, surely you’re not hanging it out on a totally unknown skyhook , surely you’re not dumb enough to just depend on a totaly unknown unimaginable whatever it was is omk by me.

I mean all those text book models in HS and BS level biology classes for 50 years have a lot of ideas (all rediculous and dismantled) and curiously the’re all natural explanations, no spacemen, no YAWH, no battery powered magic oatmeal box.

Hold up your hand if you’re in High School!

And the ID movement is in comlete congruency with the Paley argument and your ignorance is showing. Only evolanders believe in scientific proof of a theory. Ever hear of the Black Swan occurrence?

You STILL haven’t proposed a single example of positive evidence for or testable theory of ID. All you have done is to list alleged problems for evolution, all of which are based on ignorance and distortion. Don’t worry – you’re not alone. Even ID titans like Behe and Dembski have failed to formulate a theory of ID, no surprise that you can’t.

So, for the 4th time: what is the theory of Intelligent Design and how can it be tested using the scientific method?

And don’t repeat your nonsense that successfully creating artificial life would be falsification of ID. A successful experiment of that type could simply be the whim of the designer to intervene and mike nice with the researchers. You cannot deny this.

Failure could also be the whim of the designer. ID can explain anything – and thus is scientifically worthless.

Since when is there a timetable to decide that, “if a 100% successful solution to problem A is not found within X amount of time, then A cannot be explained naturalistically and must be the result of divine intervention”? Would you care to justify that position for us?

You really should start providing some positive evidence for your claims. You wouldn’t go into court without evidence to support your claims over your opponent’s – why should the scientific arena be any different?

And again, you really are a hypocrite, complaining about ad hominem attacks. Or have you forgotten your “ignorant atheist” and “demonically possessed” comments?

Let’s see “As long as there is am imperfect replicator that evolution can act on that’s all that matters”

Followed by ” The origin of life and such is completely independent and unrelated to evolution.”

If you people are the proponents and spokespersons for evolution I have every reason to understand why we need no child left behind to avoid another generation of mental midgets who can’t even keep their meaningless irrational arguments in sync with each other.

I see the pin point accuracy of my posts on metamorphosis and abiogenesis as it relates to the ID argument have stuck the vital organs resulting in sputtering, spewing, threats, and most of not a single meaningful response in any respect.

I guess I’ll just assume there is no factual response coming and your theory is as inane as it appears.

I would ask them if they have a belief in God as creatpr ans sustainer of His universe. That’s fairly determinative of both ignorance and atheism.

Some theoretical concepts that we know to be true are called supernatural as in Kurt Godel’s logical and mathmatical work.

Most natural laws are confirmed by repeated observations, repeated experiemental results in agreement a parsimonious set of hypothosies and predictions. But such are never absolutely proven because a falsifying event(s) may be observed at any time as additional knowledge is acquired.

Theories often require a period of time for purely analytical and cognitive thought based on observations before a definitive set of experiments can be properly developed.

The perihelion of Mercury comes to mind, regarding general relativity. From 1915 until 1919 there was uncertainty only finally resolved in the early sixties.

If evolanders had been in charge the general theory would likely have been rejected as having no confirmed, definitive experiements as it was largely a mathmatical concept.

I would ask them if they have a belief in God as creatpr ans sustainer of His universe. That’s fairly determinative of both ignorance and atheism.

What’s your ‘scientific proof’ of demonic control?

Most natural laws are confirmed by repeated observations, repeated experiemental results in agreement a parsimonious set of hypothosies and predictions. But such are never absolutely proven because a falsifying event(s) may be observed at any time as additional knowledge is acquired.

Care to share with us how this process has ‘proven’ ID/Creationism? Because, you know, the vast majority of biologists think this set of principles points straight to evolution.

Oh, but that’s where the ‘demonic control’ comes in, right?

And, again, Keith, what’s your view of the Noah’s ark story and the age of the earth? For some odd reason you seem rather evasive about those two topics.

also,This is amusing since evoland is a parasite science where 99% of anything scientific comes from other real science fields like physics,chemistry,geology,astronomy, and ,when anything practical is to be accomplished, one of the engineering fields.

Out of curiosity, Keith, why did you conspicuously leave biology out of this?

Is it frustrating to try to rationalize your religious views with science, while the great majority of scientists disagree with you? You know, to use science to prop us your superstitions, while most scientists are all so ignorant and full of demons? Must cause you a lot cognitive dissonance.

If most scientists are not atheists or agnostics, but rather people of faith then it should be directly measureable on this post.

I invite just this very day all the active posters to state their faith position as to a personal God, their position on His role in creation, and His ongoing relationship to His creation and creatures.

The we can determine with at least small sample statistics if not common sense whether MOST scientists are able to accommodate both TOE and traditional NT Christianity, say consistent with the Apostle’s Creed.

We’ll put Bob in the ignorant atheist and demonically controlled category so he doen’t have to provide one of his tirades.

I will state for the record that my religious beliefs are none of your bloody business. And totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Just what do peoples’ religious beliefs have to do with the validity of evolutionary theory?

Would you conduct a similar survey if we were discussing Newtonian mechanics, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, the germ theory of disease, Plate Tectonics, corrosion, lubrication & tribology, meteorology, etc. etc.?

All of these other disciplines are guided by mere “theories”. Yes, there is a “theory” of corrosion. There is a “theory” of lubrication. There is a “theory” of how surfaces in sliding contact produce wear and fatigue (tribilogy).

All of these theories are all borne of methodological materialism and none invoke a “designer” or deity. They don’t get as much controversial attention as evolution, but they’re there nonetheless.

I’m sure if you searched hard enough, you’d find that most, if not all, of these theories offended someone’s religious dogma somewhere.

Why don’t you reject all the fruits of godless materialism and go live in a cave somewhere? After all, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the computer on which you type your drivel for this blog are all fruits of godless materialism. How do you reconcile that with your faith, O Righteous One?

Just because you have a problem with evolution doesn’t mean that all people of faith do. How do you explain the fact that many people of all faiths have no problem with it?

Or are those with whom you disagree also ignorant atheists and demonically possessed, even if they profess faith? Who died and made you Arbiter of the True Faith?

As usual, a non-answer and no meaningful response. Zacky baby are you familiar with the term stick it in your ear?

This post has claimed a large percentage of evolanders are people of faith, Christians in fact. I didi not bring that to the table.

Since the claims were shown by your’s truly to be a bald faced assertion without facts and totally at odds with the most recent surveys,I thought, out of generousity, I would let this group be a sample of scientists who could by a simple confirmatory post show me wrong or rather confirm their claims.

As usual I hear the sound of retreating feet.

Does Noah’s ark have anything to do with evolution..guess I missed that part in biology class.

1) do you believe in the Noah’s ark story?
2) how old do you think the earth is?
3) how do you tell ‘demonic control’ from being an ‘ignorant atheist’?
4) what is the scientific evidence for IDC?
5) if scientific proofs of a theory are unnecessary, as you say, how do YOU pick one?
6) why did you conspicuously leave biology out of this?:This is amusing since evoland is a parasite science where 99% of anything scientific comes from other real science fields like physics,chemistry,geology,astronomy, and ,when anything practical is to be accomplished, one of the engineering fields.

Why are you so afraid to answer these questions? Are you ashamed or somehing?

Oooo, Keith. I see the level of snark has been turned up a notch. Could you be descending to the level of us evolanders?

Yes, Keith – I have heard the phrase “stick it in your ear.” Perhaps you’d care to explain how this is a meaningful response to any of my comments.

Perhaps you’d care to explain how any of your comments have been meaningful responses. Let’s see. Here’s a list of some of the questions you have been incapable of answering:

1. What is the theory of intelligent design and how can it be tested using the scientific method?

2. Since when is there a timetable that determines when it is time to abandon a materialist explanation for a phenomenon and attribute it god or a designer?

3. Who died and made you Arbiter of the True Faith?

4. Virtually all disciplines from the esoteric (lubrication & tribology) to the grandiose (evolution, big bang cosmology) are the fruits of godless materialism. If you reject one (evolution), why do you not reject them all?

5. What is the age of the earth?

6. Is the story of Noah’s Ark historical or not?

7. If scientific proof is an evolander construct, what is the non-evolander standard of proof? How does your standard differ from myth & religion?

Scientific progress existed several centuries before Darwin, the manic depressive, thought up RM and NS.

Evolution is about 5% of the entire body of scientific knowledge, its advocates are 1 in wide and 3 miles deep in the imaginary world of fantasy history.

I except your admission that your claims that the majority of scientists supporting evolution were also Christians were fraudulent and unsupportable.

And about that most basic question of just what was that first imperfect replicator that is necessary to your hypothesis…not how, I understand you can’t even contemplate that, but what was it in molecular structure and capability.

Just examinded the 10 or so responses by Dr. Behe to his critics via the DI site. It’s sort of embarrassing to see evolanders intellectually pistol whipped into utter submission by Behe in such clear terms.

But then according to the mental midgets here Lehigh, Univ. of Penn, NIH etc. are all incompetent organizations for granting him his degrees, honors, postdoc, employment, and tenure.

When I first read some wirehead evolander explain how the mousetrap could be used absent the platform by gluing or stapling it to a hardwood floor, I thought… wonder if it’s important to be REUSABLE and PORTABLE regarding a mousetrap or is one snap and its over is considered functional. Or maybe all the mice have to be in the same place.

Boy I hope this No Child Left Behind works so the next generation doesn’t resemble a bag of doorknobs.

Of course the argument for the truly logical thinker begins with origins, ultimate beginnings, and for me the scientific answer is God of the bible. All of the evidence whether cosmological, mathmatical, physical, spiritual, etc. overwhelmingly points to a finite beginning, a finite life, an ordered and complex arrangement of mass and energy,
a set of immutable physical laws, and a design including the creation of life capable of appreciating the creation, themselves and Him.

One of the faults with the methodological naturalism which dominates evolutionary thought is that in the attempt to understand life in its fullness, particularly mankind, is it ignores what we have learned from our religious experience, our spirituality, and our faith, out of hand.

As regards life there is no scientifically reasonable explanation for abiogenesis by natural means, after 100 years of concentrated effort and many millions of dollars.

The so called God of the Gaps argument is a strawman and is in no way representative of ID and modern creationist thought, indeed the gap of atheism is more to be considered in that the more we learn about life as it is extant and at the molecular level the complexity, integration, and information aspects indicate and illustrate cognitive thought and design in the smallest detail, indicators entirely consistent with our own experience in our own design and implementation experiences.

The advantage of the design inference is that it has no bias as to how one should conduct an investigation of a physical observation including the possibility that at the most detailed level there are design principles which if excepted as such, understood as such, adopted as such can impact the way we attack problems where the observations have real application across abroad arena.

Where there is a purely natural explanation for an observation which arose and is foundationed by random processes and fixed by a mixed bag of random and deterministic pressures, there are no design elements or aproaches indicated, how could there be when to implement them would require capturing a predictive methodology for purely random events and reconstructing the required NS landscape…strictly an impossibility.